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Mew appeal launched

Having already received generous pledges from a number of individual supporters towards the £1,200 cost of manufacturing and installing a plaque to poet Charlotte Mew, the Marchmont Association is now launching our public fund-raising appeal.

All donors will be credited on publicity (with their consent) and will be invited to the unveiling event and associated reception. If you would like to contribute, we would be delighted to hear from you via: ideas@marchmontassociation.org.uk.

Please feel free to pass on this information to others who you think might be interested in contributing.

Charlotte Mew was born at 30 Doughty St and lived there from 1869 to 1890. Virginia Woolf referred to her as ‘the greatest living poetess.’ Siegfried Sassoon wrote of Mew: ‘One who surely stands with Emily Brontë and Christina Rossetti . . . many will be on the rubbish heap when Charlotte’s star is at the zenith where it will remain.’ Her foremost champion Thomas Hardy wrote: ‘Miss Mew is far and away the best living woman poet – who will be read when others are forgotten.’

Following a long period of neglect, the feminist press Virago edition of her work, published in 1982, played a major role in her renaissance, as did the Penguin Classic Complete Poems edition published in 2000. Since that date her reputation has been steadily climbing.She will make a welcome addition to the local collection of literary blue plaques.

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3 thoughts on “Mew appeal launched”

This is an excellent development. Mew is one of the best if not the best of the Bloomsbury born and bred 20th Century writers. Most of those celebrated as the Bloomsbury Group did not, as she did, live their entire lives from cradle to grave in the area. No problem with that but it makes her different.